Birds, Beasts, and Relatives

Part coming-of-age autobiography and part nature guide, Gerald Durrell's dazzling sequel to "My Family and Other Animals" is based on his boyhood on Corfu, from 1933 to 1939. Originally published in 1969 but long out of print, "Birds, Beasts, and Relatives" is filled with charming observations, amusing anecdotes, boyhood memories, and childlike wonder.

Gerald Durrell was born in India in 1925. His family settled on Corfu when Durrell was a boy and he spent his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with My Family and Other Animals, and continuing with Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods. In his books he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

On leaving Corfu he returned to England to work on the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper. His adventures there are told with characteristic energy in Beasts in My Belfry. A few years later, Durrell began organising his own animal-collecting expeditions. The first, to the Cameroons, was followed by expeditions to Paraguay, Argentina and Sierra Leone. He recounts these experiences in a number of books, including The Drunken Forest. Durrell also visited many countries while shooting various television series, including An Amateur Naturalist.

In 1958 Gerald Durrell realised a lifelong dream when he set up the Jersey Zoological Park, followed a few years later by the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Rosy is My Relative, his first novel, was published in 1968. Whether in a factual account of an expedition or a work of non-fiction, Gerald Durrell's style is exuberant, passionate and acutely observed. Gerald Durrell died in 1995.